Bound
by purefoysgirl
Summary: Read Play My Game 1st or you'll have no clue what's going on. Draco and Hermione clash once more over their current predicament. Once again you are warned that I DO NOT WRITE FOR CHILDREN. If pain, humiliation, and sex disturbs you, you'd best be off.
1. No Way Out

Draco wasted no time in finding out what Granger was up to. When the weekend rolled around, he made sure to be aware of her whereabouts and managed to waylay her on her way to Hogsmead with the Weasel. They were going late after the main body of students had already gone off, the pair of them walking along in deep conversation.

Draco slipped out of the shadows and snagged Granger by the arm, yanking her back a step.

"Hey!" Weasley cried, startled and then flushing with anger. "_Get your hands off of her_, Malfoy!"

"Piss off, Weasley!" Draco snapped, no more willing to deal with him now than he ever was.

"_Draco_!" Hermione cried, horrified at his spite, and immediately, warningly, said, "_Ronald_, don't you _dare_!"

Ron's face was brick red and furious but he dropped his balled up fist.

Draco merely smirked and lifted an eyebrow at him, dropping Granger's arm and leaning nonchalantly against the wall.

"Ronald Weasley, I mean it!" Hermione firmly said, putting a restraining hand on Ron's arm. "Let me handle this, please."

"Hermione, what on _earth_ is wrong with you, lately?" Ron demanded. "Why are you even _speaking_ to him?"

"That is _my_ business, Ronald—not _yours_," Hermione said, lifting her chin in a familiar, stubborn gesture. "Now please go find Harry and tell him that I will meet you both later. _Now_, Ronald!"

"You've certainly got him trained well," Draco remarked, making sure the rangy red-head heard it as he walked off.

"This had better be a _dire_ emergency, Draco," Hermione said, arms crossed and that mutinous expression back on her face. "I have absolutely _no_ desire to be anywhere _near_ you—"

"Oh, _nonsense_," Draco said, waving his hand a little in dismissal. He shoved off of the wall and took her arm in hand again, dragging her back into the main hall and off into a side passage. The touch wiped the angry look of her face, even though it wasn't bare skin, and she softened in his grip, her lashes lowering a little.

"Where are we going?" she asked, her voice a little breathless. She dug in her heels a little and urgently said, "Honestly, Draco, I _can't_ be near you right now!"

"I don't _care_," Draco told her, and slipped his hand from her arm to grip her fingers tightly—skin on skin contact slapped her right back where he wanted her and she stopped resisting, a flush rising on her cheeks. "What _have_ you been up to, Granger?"

"Nothing," she weakly said, following him now to a darker passageway. "Draco, _please_ don't do this now, I'm really not in any mood—"

"Sod your bloody _mood_. And don't get all sullen towards _me_," Draco snapped, hauling her into the dim byway. "It's hardly _my_ fault that your little love-interest won't ever pluck up the balls to ask you out."

"No, but it _is_ your fault I won't be a virgin on my wedding night," Hermione pointedly reminded.

"Anyone who expects that is out of their bloody mind," Draco meanly told her, slinging her against the wall. "Don't get smart with me, Granger—a girl of your _appetites_ should always be careful how far she pushes the one who can hurt her worst."

She mimicked his stance, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him.

"Well?" he demanded, brows rising beneath the spill of his white-blond hair.

Hermione's mouth pursed even more, her brown eyes glittering in the semi-darkness and her expression mulish.

"Well _what_?" she tightly asked, stubbornly refusing to cave in.

Draco sighed, fingers clenching on his arms in exasperation.

"Granger," he lowly said to her, pinning her with his grey eyes. "It would be in your best interest to tell me what you've been up to. Studying, was it? You've researched a bit, have you?"

Hermione blew her breath out, sending a curl of hair floating up away from her face. She cut her eyes away from him, looking down and fidgeting with discomfort.

"Is there someplace we can go?" she softly asked, looking up at him from the corner of her eyes.

Draco gave her an inquisitive look, not sure if he'd heard her correctly.

"I don't want to talk about it in front of anyone else," she hastily said, looking truly uncomfortable.

"Come on," Draco shortly said, heading off towards the deeper parts of the castle that he'd explored in his first years at Hogwarts. There were places in the castle that no one went to anymore, places that even the ghosts left alone—it was too vast a place for thorough use, and many areas remained nominally sealed off and largely forgotten.

Granger followed him in silence, deep in thought, looking somehow alright in her shabby hooded sweatshirt and loose jeans. Her eyes were dark with thoughts, shuttered beneath her heavy lashes.

Draco found the door he was looking for and pushed on it, leaning into it until it reluctantly groaned open on its hinges and unleashed a draft of cool, musty air that made Granger reflexively hug herself. The Gryffindor babies didn't like the cold shadows or darkness—that was _Slytherin_ territory.

"Come on," Draco said, and held out his hand to her.

She took it warily, the oppressive darkness too reminiscent of those vile things that cavorted in her deepest dreams. In darkness _anything_ could happen, and it would always _stay_ in darkness, a secret forever.

He gripped her cold fingers and pulled her into the stifling black room, shoving the door closed behind them and sliding the bolt home.

"I can't see you," she said, lost in the darkness.

"Which means that _I_ can't see _you_," Draco retorted, though he could—his night vision was remarkable thanks to the gloom that always reigned in Malfoy Manor. "And thank god for small favors, I say."

"Haven't I told you before that you're not funny?" Hermione bit out, her tone icy.

"You're just a sore loser," Draco informed her. "What did you want to tell me?"

He heard her take a raspy breath, could make out the shadowy form of her hugging herself.

"It isn't going to be easy, Draco," she said.

"Telling me? Yes it is, you just open your constantly running mouth—"

"_No_!" she snapped, cutting him off. "It isn't going to be easy to break our _bond_!"

Draco stiffened, anger slowly welling in him.

"You refused to tell me how it was done," he tightly said. "You _insisted_ on keeping it from me! _I will _not_ be _stuck_ with you, mudblood_! You _will_ tell me now!"

"I'm really very sorry, Draco," she hastily said, her voice mournful. "It isn't as if I fancy being stuck with you, either!"

"Get to the point!" he shouted, grabbing her shadowy form by the shoulders and giving her a shake.

"I…I didn't realize that…it's just—if the love-struck bond isn't broken within a few weeks then it's nearly impossible _to_ break," she said, and her voice was thick with real tears, her small hands clutching his arms helplessly. "The longer it's kept active, the stronger it gets, growing in proportion with the incubi's or succubus' power."

Draco only half-listened, his keen mind quickly doing the math.

"It's been nearly three weeks, has it?" he asked, confirming his suspicions. "What were you going to do, Granger? _Avoid_ me until enough time had passed?"

"No!" she cried, frustrated and outraged all at once. "No, of _course_ not! Draco, I don't _know_ how to break the bond! I didn't have time to find out before you ambushed me in the library! Once the damage was done I read the book completely and I realized that it didn't _have_ a recantation!"

In a small, almost inaudible voice she added, "I've been searching like mad for it, Draco, but I'm not even sure anymore if a way exists."


	2. Punishment

Draco was so angry he jerked his hands off of her lest he do her irreparable damage, infuriated by Hermione's softly spoken words.

"I'm so sorry," she wept, covering her face with her hands. "This isn't what I wanted…"

"Isn't it?" he asked through gritted teeth, fists clenched.

"No," she whispered, miserable. "Draco, I only wanted to be sure you didn't harm anyone else—_including_ yourself. You've no idea how dangerous you can be—"

"Spare me!" he spat, taking another step backwards, trembling with anger.

"I mean it," she said, dropping her hands, her head lowered. "The bond is only reinforcing what we feel for one another—in our case it's hatred. Please, Draco, you have to understand, in this type of situation—"

"Situation?" he repeated, and laughed mirthlessly.

"—usually the incubus or succubus _loves_ the person they awaken their powers with," Hermione pressed on, determined for him to now know all of the things she had fearfully hidden from him. "What you did to me perverted that bond and now both of us are stuck dealing with it."

"_You_ trapped me," he hissed, advancing on her suddenly. "It was _you_, Granger! You could've told me all of this then and _none_ of it would've ever happened—"

"_We are _both_ responsible for this, Draco_!" Hermione shouted, fury driving away the tears. She flailed out at him with surprisingly strong little fists, driven to violence in her frustration with him. "You carry the guilt no less than I!"

He trapped her wrists, squeezing until she regained herself, turning her to wrap her in his arm and trap her against his body, stilling at last.

"Do you think I honestly want to be bound to you, Draco?" she sadly asked. "Do you honestly believe that _this_ was my dream come true? Bound to someone who despises me and belittles me at every turn? I wanted a _real life_, Draco! I wanted a husband and children and a _career_!"

"Just _shut up_, will you?" Draco snapped, squeezing his arm around her so tightly she squeaked and fell silent once more. The shaking of her slight shoulders unnerved him, made her seem so much more vulnerable than she had any right being. He'd never seen her so upset and, frankly, didn't like it one bit. Nasty, arrogant, snobbish Granger he understood—weeping, terrified and utterly lost Granger he could do without. "Show some spine, Granger—nothing lasts forever."

She snuffled, still hitching with sobs.

"I'm sorry," she said again, now an apology for her tears. "I don't know what's come over me, I've been so moody lately."

"How very female of you," Draco remarked, still busily trying to figure out what in the world he could do to unmake this situation.

"I've checked and rechecked and made discrete inquiries with the professors," Hermione lowly said, slumping against him, wiping at her face with her sleeve. "I've turned the library upside down—but the only thing I've found is how to _bind_ an incubus or succubus. It would seem that once a creature like yourself is bound, Draco, very few people consider setting them free."

"You'd best figure it out, mudblood," Draco told her. "Because my power isn't patient and you're all I've got—so unless you want to be well and truly a victim, I suggest you apply those formidable brains to our predicament and _think of something_."

"There's nothing," she whispered, defeated. "Draco, there's nothing…"

"That's _not_ the right answer," Draco said, ready to strangle her in the darkness and leave her laying there. But she moved slightly, trying to ease the pressure of his arm on her, and managed slide his hand up her bare belly. That slight contact was all it took to drop his defenses and let the power rear its hungry head. Anger and frustration turned into a lust now familiar to him and he sank his short, sharp nails deep into the flat plane of her stomach. "I'll make you sorry you ever thought to trap me, Granger."

He felt it infect her, wrapping itself around her in hungry welcome, knowing the taste of her flesh and ravenous for it. She went boneless in his arms, trembling with desire, a sharp spiking thrill of terror shooting up through the center of her.

They were alone together in the dark and no one knew where either of them were. No one could hear them, no one could see them—there was no possibility of being found or interrupted.

And he knew her most decadent desires.

"_Punishment_," he hissed into her ear, feeling the shudder run through the length of her body. "You're really in it _now_, Granger."

Her only answer was a breathless little sigh of relief.


	3. Self Destruct

Draco let it flow up out of him, too angry to put even the least of leashes on his powers. It burst forth into Hermione with such force she whimpered, stung by it. He didn't consider the consequences, didn't think about what it might mean—he only wanted to hurt her and hurt her for what she had done to them both, and the power _knew_.

Without even the minimal restraint of Draco's wariness, it flooded the pair of them, white-hot and ravenous, chasing rational thought away with every throb of it through their nerves, leaving in its wake a narcotic euphoria that only heightened what each of them felt—his fury, her appalled need.

"I'm going to destroy you, Granger," Draco harshly whispered, fingers clenching in her flesh as if she were just a piece of meat. "You won't ever look at me without flinching…"

He pulled away from her and backed deeper into the thick darkness, shedding his shirt and dropping it without regard onto the floor, the power swirling out from him to curl into Granger, hooking her like a fish.

Even though she couldn't see him she could still _sense_ him, and slowly followed him like a sleepwalker in the midst of a dream, one small hand lifting as if to touch him.

"_Come_," he whispered, moving easily in the darkness, backing through the open archway to yet a deeper room. "Come get your due."

"Draco…" she murmured, drifting after him, weaving like a drunk, inebriated on the heady lust his magic induced. She stumbled and fell and he laughed cruelly, watching her.

"That's it," he sneered, coming to a slow, lazy halt. "_Crawl_ to me, Granger."

One little hand lifted, questing, testing the darkness that disoriented her. She tried to stand but stumbled over the same bit of detritus that had tripped her in the first place.

"Take your time," Draco murmured. "We'll stay as long as you like, so long as you know one thing—I'll have my due in _blood_, Granger. I'll teach you the price of attempting to snare a Malfoy."

"I've snared an incubus, Draco," Hermione said, and indeed did crawl over the pile, too uncertain on her feet to chance walking now. "And an incubus snared me."

"We'll call it a draw, then," Draco generously offered, amused to see her crawling, feeling her way in through the door. "_Come_, come here…"

He heard her sob once, terrified but unable to resist—it wasn't the bond pulling her towards him, it was that awful and pestilent _desire_. Here were all her worst nightmares with the potential to unfold around her. She would never have such a chance again and she knew it, and was too seduced by the forbidden to deny him. She had, indeed, grown _appetites_ since he'd given her such a violent introduction to the physical, and in this tomb-like darkness anything was possible.

And she hated that she couldn't walk away.

Draco let his head fall back a little, letting that magic wash through him unrestrained and starting to feel just a bit tipsy on it. It was growing so solid around them that he and Granger both started to shimmer, giving her enough light to find him by. He felt her little hands clutch his jeans, pulling to drag herself up. Felt her grip onto his belt, pulling until she stood.

Her eyes were cloudy, drunk, filled with nothing but the lust she felt, all traces of her stubborn, snobbish self driven out by his magic to leave this willing husk of nerve-endings.

"Will you do what I ask?" he whispered, smirking a little at her. He knew it all, oh yes. He knew what made Hermione Granger wake from fitful dreams awash in sweat and trembling, horrified and longing and afraid "What will you do?"

"Anything," she whispered, incubus-struck to the very core of her, bond or no bond. Her hands ran up his belly, up his chest to his throat, her sharp nail scratching him and only serving to make him more eager to be cruel to her. "Anything…"

He pressed his forehead to hers, glowing eyes staring into glowing eyes, so close his lips whispered against hers when he whispered, "_Strip_."

That jolted her, some deep-seated panic bubbling to the surface.

"What…"

"_Strip_," he said again, more forcefully. "You're awfully hung up on this notion of me forcing you to do things—I've already told you that you're in it, Granger, up to your rather terrified-looking hair. No excuses, no shying, now; you're going to be a willing participant in your own destruction. Now _strip_."

"I can't," she said, nervous.

"You _will_," Draco said, drawing back from her to cross his arms over his bare chest. "You'll have to ask for everything now, and I won't touch you till you're nude as a grape. Best get started, mudblood."

Shivering with shame, still drunk on magic, Hermione's trembling hands nervously unzipped her hoodie and discarded it on the floor. She hesitated over her thin, scoop-necked tee-shirt but skimmed it off. She kicked off her worn sneakers and pulled off her socks, barefoot on the cold stone. She shook so hard it took her twice to undo the clasp of her delicately feminine bra, and she pulled one arm protectively to cover her small breasts once she shed it, her pale skin vivid now with a blush.

"Go on, I'm getting bored," Draco cruelly said, sniggering to see her trembling on the verge of crying.

One-handed, she undid the snaps on her loose jeans and kicked them off, standing bare before him, huddled and chilled but not crying off.

"Well, was that so hard?" he inquired, tasting her humiliation and the dark, breathless desire beneath it…the desire in her for _more_. "I've seen better, Granger. Maybe in a few years, once you've filled out and done something with that god-awful hair of yours, old Weasel will finally ask you out."

He smirked to see her look horrified, knowing she was thinking of Ron and her long-time crush on him and considering how appalling this thing she was doing really was.

"Or not," Draco said, shrugging his straight shoulders. "By the time I'm done with you, you might change your mind about marrying a stick-in-the-mud. Doubt Weasley's got a rough bone in him."

"He doesn't need to," Hermione weakly said, looking troubled.

"Doesn't he?" Draco asked, cocking his head. "No matter, it'll be your problem by then. Get my belt, Granger."

She started again, unprepared for the request.

Draco refused to repeat himself, only stared at her in the vague light that wrapped around them.

She took a deep breath and quickly, deftly unbuckled his belt and slid it free of his narrow hips. Without a word, she put it in his palm, already trembling in anticipation.


	4. Whipping

Draco accepted the belt with a condescending tilt of his head, long fingers closing over the buckle. Hermione's hand lingered on the leather as if unwilling to relinquish ownership of it or was, perhaps, too fond of its touch to let it go.

"I once told my father that I could never harm you," he suddenly said, thinking of that strange conversation and the assessing, predatory look in his father's too-knowing eyes. "He told me it was a pity."

Hermione flinched when he laughed, letting her fingers drop, taking another deep breath of the magic that flowed off of him in thick waves.

"Wh…" she shook her head, trying to clear it of his siren call, trying to find some vestige of rational thought somewhere inside herself. "Why would he suggest it?"

"Maybe he knew you better than I did then," Draco wryly said, pulling the belt through his fist and doubling it over, the warm leather supple in his grip. "Father doesn't mind treating people according to their due."

"And how should I be treated?" Hermione asked, brows drawn, heart thundering because this was just what she'd dreamed, just what she'd always hidden from herself—to take the constant loathing and make of it something _true_. To give in, finally, to her own inner feelings and bow in acquiescence before those who would fancy themselves her betters. It was something that every bone in her body rebelled against but her secret, dark heart demanded. And once it was finished between them, it would be a memory to be revisited only in restless midnight hours where picking at the scabs was the only way to heal the wound. Not everyone had the chance to live out their most fearful and fevered dreams, Hermione would not forget that Draco managed such a thing for her.

Draco sneered at her, his look one of mingled disgust and hunger.

"Like a _dog_," he shortly said, and slung her around by her hair, flinging her up against the stone wall where she clutched it madly, panting and afraid and utterly _alive_. He pinned her briefly, only long enough to lowly say into her ear, "Hold still, Granger. I'll use no bonds to tie you, understand? You stand here against this wall and hold yourself still. And if you fall down, if you move, you pick yourself back up and we start again…"

She dug her fingers into the stone, trembling but standing tall. The first bite of the belt across her shoulders was too much, at first, to feel—but the odd numbness gave way to a burning, piercing pain and she yelped with each successive blow. Draco was no novice, apparently—he crossed and re-crossed her shoulders, back, and bottom, hitting her with force enough to make her sway, struggling to keep still.

The magic swelled between them, voraciously feeding on Hermione's shamed, horrified pleasure, flowing into Draco so that he only whipped her harder, encouraged. Even though the room was cold as a mausoleum both of them were sweating, caught in a battle of wills now—he would not stop until she folded, she would not fold until he stopped.

Finally, when the blood began to flow from the juncture of the lashes meeting, Hermione slumped against the wall, sobbing hoarsely and shivering with a tremulous, delicate sort of pleasure uncoiling inside her taut body. It was not just the tremendous pain of being whipped, but the meaning behind it, the strain and fury inside Draco translating itself to her flesh. She had always been the recipient of his mindless hatred, but now she was the canvas for his cruel passions, and the knowledge made her heart quicken, made her skin tingle—he _needed_ her, and no one had ever needed Hermione Granger before.

Her sweat stung the lashes, but his tongue stung them more. He knelt there behind her in the darkness with his hands holding the curve of her hips, that belt dangling against her flesh, and lapped the pain from her skin like candy.

"Don't, don't," she whispered, pressed against the cold wall, her skin numbing to it while her whole backside was afire with pain. She pressed her forehead to the wall, weakening, her back arching beneath his tongue. He found every bloodied spot, every place where her skin had torn, and probed it, making her wince and tighten.

He lapped the last of the blood weeping from her back and stood, nudging her feet apart with the toe of his boot and pulling her hips away from the wall.

"What are you doing?" she asked, enveloped in a groggy haze of need and wanting nothing more than for Draco to shed the rest of his clothes and have her there against the wall. She'd never denied that he was delectable—though his personality spoiled it—and now he was even more beautiful and she wanted him badly, as badly as she despised him.

"Sorry, did you think I was done?" he asked, cruel laughter in his voice. "I've only just started, Granger. There's still quite a bit of your hide we have to cover."

He stepped back from her and she yelped when the belt bit expertly across the back of her thighs and began raining fury down on her trembling legs. But it was nothing compared to when he warned her to hold _extremely_ still and snapped the belt up across her inner thigh, perilously close to much more sensitive areas.

She screamed in terror but did not move, prompting Draco to say, "You can always _run_, Granger. I know you want to—I can taste your panic."

Her breath came in heaving gasps, her entire body coiled in dreadful, delightful anticipation. She screamed again, more from fear than from real pain, though it hurt.

Draco laughed behind her and lowly said, "That's it, Granger, be _afraid_, because I _will_ whip you there—I'll pull you apart at the seams if I have to, mudblood, to teach you the depths of your mistake."

So saying, he laid the lashes up higher and higher and, eventually, snapped the belt up solidly between her legs.

She was silent for a breathless, shocked moment until the belt bit into her tender flesh for the second time—unerringly striking in the exact same spot. Her head dropped back and spots danced before her eyes and she was screaming without even being aware of it, great howls that echoed in the room while her body exploded into a thousand pieces of a mindless orgasm while he lashed her again and again. She was nothing but sensation feeding up from the aching, stinging contact of his belt, and was hardly aware when he was forcing her onto her knees, made ravenous by her pleasure and her abandonment to his hands. Her screams died down to whimpers, to her lowly moaning over and over, "Oh my god, oh my god…"

"If you say so, Granger," Draco hissed into her ear, turning her to face him, forcing her face up for a kiss that scorched her and left him panting raggedly. "I've seen your secret self, I've seen your dark dreams—you cowed and bleeding and pleading, no part of your person held sacred, every bit of you defiled and you delighting in it. To be used, to be hurt, to be punished, to be _needed_. To prove your worthiness through abasement—I've seen it all…But the problem with unleashing those dreams, Granger, is that they often don't wish to be kept hidden afterwards."

He bit her lip, sucking on it, hands holding her head so tightly the bones complained and she arching up to meet it, hungry for it, hungry for _him_.

"So I may be giving you what you want _now_, Granger," he softly said, his lips whispering softly against hers. "But don't consider it a gift when you sleep next to some fat, balding, boring oaf and spend yourself in tears yearning to have this again. _That_ is how I repay you, you perfidious _bitch_. I take the cost in blood and pleasure, and leave you to reap the consequences, leave you knowing that what you suffered so willingly at my hands is what you'll never have again."

Given a thousand years to consider it, he could have invented no greater punishment to inflict on her than this—the offering of her darkest desires fulfilled, but only once, only _now_.And even as she wept, knowing he was right, she still put her arms around him, wanting his cruel retribution.


	5. Broken

He knew things were only worsening. He knew it because he'd let the magic run rampant and now that it had its head it refused to be contained—and while it wove its fibers through the both of them, it drew them tighter, bound them closer, merging them into one creature with one thought…_more_.

But Draco's taste for vengeance was not so easily dissuaded. He bent the power to that end alone—give the mudblood her night of anonymous madness, and let her live the rest of her life remembering what she'd done so eagerly for him. Right now she didn't truly understand the ramifications of what she was doing, and Draco was determined that she remain largely ignorant of it until it was too late for her to take it back.

She clung to him like a lost animal, her fingers digging into the muscles of his arms, her mouth open and welcoming for his own. Despite how much her back and legs must pain her, she moved smoothly into the hollow of his crouched body to press against him, touch-starved.

'_More, more, more…_' the power was insistent and indifferent, not caring if the pleasure Granger fed it on was birthed from humiliation and pain, only wanting more to fill its endless greed. And Draco, naturally, wanted nothing more than to oblige it.

"And what now?" he murmured, amused, drunk on magic so that it made his head spin. Her bare body was stimulus enough, even though it had some filling out to do, but the true power of her allure lay in her abject hunger for his cruelty. A sadist most of his life, Draco had finally found someone strong enough to bend beneath his will without breaking. Sometimes there was victory in defeat.

She leaned into him, little hands sliding up his throat to clench on his skull, her uneven breathing spilling up against his smirking lips. Her glowing eyes sparkled with something fierce and chillingly determined.

"Everything," Hermione whispered, cocking her head and smiling a little, sadly and with regret. "_Everything_."

He stood up, dumping her onto her lashed bottom, the belt dangling easily in one hand.

"I told you you'd have to ask for it now, Granger," he lowly said, idly slapping the looped belt against his leg. "Anything and everything will come back to _you_, so when the tears and recriminations begin, you can't point at me and cry foul."

She blinked a little, swaying, looking up at him.

"Make me…it's just—"

"I don't _have_ to make you do anything!" Draco snapped. "That's the point of this, mudblood. I don't have to _make_ you because you _want_ to, you're just a stubborn prig. Begging was just the beginning, Hermione."

She shuddered, hugging herself and looking stricken, but Draco offered her no quarter. It would've been insulting, and he knew that—whatever else she might show the world—Granger was insufferably proud with more backbone than most men.

"I can't do this with you," she tearfully whispered, agonizing now over her fierce yearning and her shame. "I can't _do_ this, especially not with you."

Draco laughed, looking down at her and shaking his head a little.

"You've got it all wrong, Granger," he whispered. "I'm the _only_ one you can do this with. Do you think little Ronald Weasley will want to play this game with you? Do you? The first time you ask him to hurt you he'll be horrified, scared to death. You can never tell him how much you enjoy being used like a whore—he'd drop dead of shock. There is _no one_ in that light and happy world of yours who would look on your secret imaginings with anything other than revulsion…"

He crouched again, gripping her chin hard in his hand and forcing her to look at him.

"_I'm it_," he tightly said. "There's nothing I can do to you, nothing you can ask me for that will make me think less of you, Granger, because I already don't respect you, I already think you're vile. There's no disgusting thought in that head of yours that could make me despise you more, and no depravity you've dreamed of that could shock or match what I've already done or plan on doing—you need _darkness_ for this, Granger, not the light. So you _can_ do this, _especially_ with me."

She wiped her face and stared at him, weighing and assessing, trying to decide.

"Darkness," she whispered, and the power grew stronger, the light dimmer until they were both just vague, anonymous shadows. "I will, then."

Her hands touched him like butterflies, skimming down his flat stomach, finding the catch on his pants and breaking it open.

He stood, backing up a little, making her crawl after him and catch him, fighting to lower his jeans over his narrow hips. He laughed and fell back against the wall, leaning on it while she freed him, on her knees and frantic now, her nails biting into his skin and her breath hot, panting.

What she lacked in skill she made up for in enthusiasm, responding with gusto to each of his cruel corrections, whimpering with delight when he pulled her hair, when he stopped her to slap her silly and start over again. She was ridiculed and humiliated and she loved every second of it—dark dreams come true, but only once.

He didn't let her finish, knowing already the desires that cavorted in her head. He knelt there with her in the darkness, gripping her face in his hands.

"Everything," she whispered again, shaking like a leaf. "_Everything_."

What he did to her there in that dark and chilly room would haunt her for the rest of her life, would wake her as if from a nightmare screaming with loss and craving it. All of those things that she could never admit to someone who loved her Draco did to her, every cruelty, every harsh word, every bit of her defiled, just as she'd dreamed.

And the magic was consuming, so strong now that Draco had no idea how to reel it back in, how to keep it from Hermione, whom it delighted in thanks to their bond.

Something peculiar happened there towards the end, while Draco worked her flesh with something bordering awe. They were wrapped tightly to one another there on the cold stone floor, unmindful of the dust and scurrying things while he tried very hard to drive her straight through the floor. Her body clenched around him in a now-familiar rhythm as she hit her climax again, her little toes dug into his hips, her fingers clutching his shoulders so hard that her nails drew blood, her breathless mews filling his ears.

Then she whispered something.

He only half heard her, and quickly forgot it when he came with her—but once it was done the magic retreated and he could tell immediately that their bond was somehow broken.

"Is it gone?" he asked, elated.

"I…I think so," Hermione said, sounding unsure and a little upset. "I don't feel it anymore, do you?"

"How on earth did we manage _that_?" he asked, grinning in the darkness. "Bugger it, I don't care, so long as we aren't bound anymore, I'm pleased."

"I'm not sure that it's gone," Hermione negated, though she already sounded defeated. "I just…I'm not sure."

"It isn't asking for you," Draco said, intent on pressing his point. "I think we did it, Granger."

"I've no idea how it could've worked, but it stands to reason," she lowly said, agreeing with him finally. "After all, hatred bound us together…"

Draco slipped away from her and dressed quickly, finding his clothes in the darkness and hastily putting them on, buoyant with the idea that he was finally _free_.

Hermione followed more slowly, stiff and sore. Her pale skin ran with vivid rivulets of blood, but Draco had been extremely careful with what he'd done to her—once she had her bulky clothes back on no one would be able to see. Still, she moved like someone in pain, and he sniggered a little to see it, filled with a pleasant flush that was about all his spent libido could manage after their little exploits.

He briefly entertained the notion of leaving her there, but abandoned it to help her finish dressing, which she softly thanked him for. She was, in fact, so subdued and quiet that he found himself wanting to get away from her as quickly as possible—there was only one Hermione Granger who was even vaguely interesting, and it wasn't this pale, shaken little shade beside him.

"Come on," he said, and took her hand, rather surprised when the power didn't flow out to kiss her skin. It was just like touching any other girl, a vague, slumberous interest from something already full to bursting.

Draco led her back the way they'd come, startled to see that it was full dark out. He left her at the foot of the stairs with a curt comment about her washing up and took himself off to do the same, rather pleased with the knowledge that the bond might truly be broken.


	6. End Game

Days passed, and then a week, and still the hunger didn't demand Hermione Granger's presence. Draco was giddy with glee and fancied that he would never be bound again—he'd awakened his powers, he'd wreaked a thousand sorts of havoc on Granger, and now he was able to seduce any woman he pleased without her determination holding his magic in check.

Cocky by nature, he did not hesitate to bait her as he always had, only now knowing the sort of devastating secrets about her that could undo her entire life. Granger hated him more than ever, doing her best to ignore him when she could and, failing that, to scowl at him. There was only once he even _vaguely_ mentioned her penchant for a firm hand, but the panic was so steady and utterly despairing in her huge brown eyes that he could only sneer at her instead of continue to scare her. There was very little in life that was sacred to Draco Malfoy, but aside from occasionally probing at Granger's wounds, he would no more betray her secret than he would voluntarily scar himself. They had branded one another far deeper than the skin allowed and, hatred or no, their actions had been sanctified in the heart of a cold, black room to which Draco alone had the key. While he may never use that key again, it gave him smug delight to know he owned it still, to know that any time he wanted her he could have her, however he wished.

The more time passed and the less she responded to him the more curious he became about how exactly their bond had severed itself. He knew Granger hadn't purposefully done anything, her distress at being unable to unbind them had been too real for an act and she hadn't the power to resist him when his magic debauched her.

It came to him suddenly in Potions, when he glanced 'round and caught her looking at him from the corner of her eyes. The familiar stark hunger was gone and in its place was something softer and sad, raw and wounded. She smiled at him a little, a wry and self-depreciating smile still tinged with some vague form of affection.

Weasley murmured something to her and she turned to murmur back, patting his hand in a motherly way.

Eyes huge, Draco frantically wracked his memory, trying vainly to remember what it was she had whispered so softly in his ear right before the bond severed itself. But he truly didn't need to remember, he _knew_. Her look spoke volumes to him, to he who knew her best.

He looked back at her and caught her eye and for the first time since they'd met he gave her a slight smile that held no malice, no cruelty, just an awkward form of apology.

She nodded her head a little and returned to the Weasel's insistent questioning.

Draco laughed lowly, thoroughly amused at how things had fallen out for them both. And, secretly, he wondered if Hermione would have the strength to deny him anything at all now. He would have to test that out, see what sort of boundaries she drew for him now.

Hatred had bound the two of them together so tightly it was almost impossible to sever it. So it stood to reason that the only way to break that bond would be for one of them to eradicate the thing that held them together.

And what, after all, was the opposite of hatred?

_Game one to Malfoy_.

End

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**I'm sure this isn't finished yet, because I don't feel like it is. I'm sorry if the last few chapters weren't juicy enough, I decided to make a couple page edit to the original before posting—wasn't sure if some fans were ready for it since I've been getting some oddball messages about my work. So expect a future installment, perhaps, if I get some time and can get to it.**

**Me**


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